Pocket Size Book for the Pilgrims

“Ek ek kadam bhadhae, apni Ganga swachh banae” – Let’s take steps towards making our Ganga clean, says the title of this pocket-size book that aims at guiding tourists, especially pilgrims in making environmentally responsible choices while travelling.

This booklet was designed for the project SGR – ‘Support to Ganga Rejuvenation’ under IEWP, implemented by GIZ.

It targets behaviors that negatively impact the environment like throwing trash in the river, as well as those that affect the flora and fauna around water bodies in pilgrimage sites. The illustrations are simple and the language used is lucid to communicate the suggestions clearly in a small space.

Publication Design in Service of a River

Working on a booklet for the Ganga is a particular kind of design assignment. The subject is sacred to millions of people and ecologically critical to the country. The audience, pilgrims travelling to sites along the river, is diverse in age, literacy level and first language. And the format is a pocket-sized publication that must communicate meaningfully in a small space, in the hands of someone who may be reading it between acts of worship or while walking a ghat. Wishbox Studio’s approach to this project was shaped by every one of those constraints.

The Brief

The booklet was designed for the SGR project, “Support to Ganga Rejuvenation,” under the Indo-European Water Partnership implemented by GIZ. Its purpose was to guide tourists and pilgrims toward environmentally responsible choices while travelling along the Ganga, addressing behaviours that negatively impact the river and the ecosystems around pilgrimage sites: waste disposal, interaction with flora and fauna and general environmental conduct.

The Design Approach

As a publication design agency with experience in communication work for development sector clients, Wishbox understood that the challenge here was not the message. The message was clear. The challenge was delivery. A booklet that felt bureaucratic or preachy would be ignored. A booklet that felt genuinely useful and visually accessible had a chance of being read, carried and acted upon.

The tone of the title itself set the direction: Ek ek kadam bhadhae, apni Ganga swachh banae. Step by step, let us make our Ganga clean. This is a message of invitation, not instruction. The design followed the same register.

Illustration as the Primary Communication Tool

The booklet design services approach centred on illustration. Simple, characterful visuals were developed to represent the suggested behaviours and the behaviours to avoid, in a way that could be understood quickly regardless of the reader’s literacy level. In publication design for public communication, illustration does what photography and text cannot: it makes abstract guidance concrete and makes compliance feel achievable rather than demanding.

The illustrations were kept clean and warm in style, matching the accessible language used throughout. Technical guidance in lucid, direct language sat alongside the visuals rather than competing with them.

Format as a Design Decision

The pocket-size format was not incidental. It was a considered choice about how this publication would actually be used. Custom book layout design at this scale requires thinking about the object in the reader’s hands: how it is opened, how it is carried and how easily individual pages can be found in a moment of reference. The booklet was designed to function as a companion, something a pilgrim could slip into a bag and return to without friction.

What This Work Represents

This project demonstrates what Wishbox brings to public communication and booklet design for development sector clients: the ability to take a complex behavioural brief and translate it into a designed object that people actually want to pick up. The Ganga deserved communication that matched the care of the people who love it.